


Rabbit and the Monkey Cups

by darlingdeathbird



Category: Adventures In Wonderland (TV 1992)
Genre: Birthday, Exotic Plants, Hatter pole-dancing, Prostitution, alice and tweedles friendship, botanical pornography as it were, hare wanting to be a ma, lots of jokes about how monkey cups look like penises
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:26:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26725123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingdeathbird/pseuds/darlingdeathbird
Summary: Hatter, Hare, and Alice chip in on a carnivorous plant for Rabbit's birthday, because why not?
Relationships: Hatter/Hare
Comments: 5
Kudos: 4





	1. He Needs Just the Right Gift

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rachel1987](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rachel1987/gifts).



> Yo! Heads up: there's a lot of jokes about penises in this story because google monkey cups. Also there is an extremely silly and not at all graphic sequence of Hatter having to perform "services" for the Duchess. Many jokes, obviously, surrounding this as well. Though I doubt children 13 and under are on here reading fics for this show, I just thought I'd mention that this story isn't for them. But it's also pretty tame, and in my opinion it's teen friendly. Why? Because I would have read this as a teen, and laughed, and found none of the concepts to be new. At the end of the day, I had to rate the story "M" anyway, because I know not everyone is comfortable with the same things, and at least I can say my bases were covered. :)

Wondermart was having a huge clearance sale on Halloween stuff, so Hatter and Hare were promptly there on a crisp November afternoon, to hit two birds with one stone. You see, Rabbit’s birthday was at the end of the week. How did they know? Alice had just told them. She was tagging along right behind them, actually, mentioning it in a timid fashion, because she herself was unsure what to get the bunny, or any bunny really, let alone one of his age.

“Ahhh, there’s got to be something here,” Hatter said to the other two confidently.

“You think he might want a new cape?” Hare wondered, patting at some leftover Dracula capes at the end of a costume rack.

“It’s possible. How about a skull? You think he needs one of these?” By now, Alice was squinting as Hatter plucked up a funky glow-in-the-dark skull from a shelf of cheap yard decorations.

“No, let’s get him this candy bowl,” Hare suggested, though just as he indicated it, the plastic skeleton’s hands guarding its mouth closed around his hand and gave him a serious jolt.

“You guys...” Alice started.

“I want that for myself,” Hatter told Hare.

“Hell if you’re keeping that in your kitchen!”

“It’ll be great for my cookies!” Hatter insisted, with a scowl. “Lord knows _you’re_ not keeping me away from them!”

“You GUYS.”

“Huh?” They both turned to her obliviously, holding each side of the bowl as the skeleton hands slapped open and closed.

“I don’t think Rabbit wants leftover Halloween stuff for his birthday,” she tried to tell them, in what was the most neutral voice she could manage.

“Are you sure?” Hatter wondered. She just rolled her eyes.

“Why don’t we try, uh, some plants at the nursery, or, or a sleep mask? Some fuzzy slippers?”

Her two companions looked to each other and shrugged like she might have a point.

& & &

So off to the Wonderland nursery they went, where Alice was plucking up pots of pansies and tulips and flashing them at Hatter and Hare, who seemed not at all impressed. “I mean they’re _fine_ if you just want something to take up space in your window sill,” Hare told her with his eyes half closed. Alice was silent, as she really didn’t see a problem with this. “Alice. Alice Alice Alice~~” Hare drawled, looking around the nursery like he was embarrassed to have to explain this to her. “When my Grandpa December was around the Rabbit’s age, he was going through his very last existential crisis, and the last thing he needed was to fill up his window sills.”

Hatter nodded emphatically. “Mhm. Mhm. That’s a mid-life crisis kind of present.”

“What we need to get the Rabbit is something that reminds him that he’s in control of his life again.”

“Right! Something that says twilight can be just as exciting as any sunrise,” Hatter chipped in, swooping his hand into the air.

“I don’t know where you’re going with this,” Alice told them.

“Well obviously--” Hatter started... then he turned to Hare, looking for some help. “Where _are_ we going with this?”

Hare was all shifty-eyed by now. “Come. Come, my children,” he said.

In no time, they were being led to the “restricted” section of the nursery… a shady little greenhouse shack thingy-mabob… covered with vines and thorns. And the woman helping customers there looked awfully witchy. Her wiry salt and pepper hair was stacked onto her head in a bun, almost all of her fingers had a ring, and she was walking around with a hunch. It gave Alice the creeps. Hatter, too. He was trying to hide behind her, actually, and it wasn’t working out very well.

“Do you have a membership card?” She asked Hare, also looking very shifty-eyed. Hare took out his wallet and flashed the goods. Then she jerked up her chin like a bouncer who had recognized one of their own, as if to say “a’iiiight, ya’ll’s cool to go in”...

In a very interesting turn of events, it was Hatter clutching Hare’s arm and nibbling his knuckles, and Alice trailing behind them, using his coat-tails as some kind of safety leash.

“Poisonous… carnivorous…” Alice read the signs hesitantly as they passed them.

“Cadaverous… smelly?!” Hatter screeched.

“Oh, the _smelliest!_ ” Hare flapped his hands and kept walking.

“I _don’t_ think the Rabbit is going to want a smelly plant, Mr. Hare. After all, he’ll have to keep it at the palace, and if the Queen doesn’t like it…” Alice started.

“Well then I know! We’ll get him a guard plant!” Hare concluded. Hatter seemed both extremely terrified and extremely excited about seeing which selections of guard plant this place had.

“There are plants that can guard palaces?” Alice wondered incredulously.

“Shhh, everyone be quiet,” Hare told them. They weren’t far from an enclosure where a deep crimson light was shining on a beastly looking growth in the corner of the greenhouse. At its base was an array of spikey pads clustering around even spikier shoots and bulbs -- all more or less foaming at the mouths, or whatever it had.

“What? It can’t hear us--” Alice tried to say before Hatter’s hand fell over her mouth.

“ _You don’t know that,”_ he stage-whispered without looking at her. She almost had the nerve to bite him. Evidently, Hare had immediately forgotten to show any caution once he realized what was in the enclosure because he was bursting at the seams and hopping in place like a cheerleader without pom-poms.

“Oh, WOW. They said they were going to order it in, but I HONESTLY DIDN’T BELIEVE THEM. Look you guys, it’s a GIANT CATAPULTING FLYPAPER TRAP! And no wonder they’ve got these bars: someone could fall right into that thing and they’d be a GONER,” Hare told them, tenting his fingers and grinning from ear to ear, with every possible dimple in his face showing.

“Geez, Mr. Hare. I never realized you were so, well, morbid.” Hare looked mildly surprised for a second, then just shrugged.

“Anyway, Rabbit could never handle something like this. And look at the price. Oof!” They watched Hare take out a neon green notepad from his pocket and scribble down a note. “Reminder to myself to break open the ole piggy bank when I get home. I just might have enough!”

It was Hatter’s turn to lay down the line:

“Hell if you’re keeping that in your garden!”

“Oh, I wouldn’t put it in my garden. I’d put it in my dungeon,” Hare told him matter-of-factly.

“Ohhhhh. Well in that case… just remember to show it who’s boss.” A whole lotta eyebrow wiggling and elbow jabbing took place before Alice could no longer sit with this image. She pointed at the first thing she saw.

“Uhh, what about this? This looks exciting enough. What is it?” She asked Hare, who was even blushing by now. He cleared his throat.

“Oh, those are… I think I remember… oh yes! Monkey cups!”

“Monkey cups? That doesn’t sound too scary.”  
  


Hatter and Hare shrugged. Their minds had clearly moved on to other things. “Nahhhh, guess not! It’d probably be perfect for Rabbit - he can feed it bugs and stuff when he’s having a bad day. Hahahahhaha!” Alice frowned just as soon as he winked at her. “What? We all know he has a sadistic side.”

& & &

As cool as the plant was, Alice wasn’t particularly sold on the idea that Rabbit would be satisfied with just _that_ kind of gift on his birthday, so she begged and pleaded for them to come with her to hit the nearest convenience store. They were being absolute drama kings about it as if they were in some kind of black and white purgatory hell as she perused the greeting card section for _just the right one._

“Come _on,_ Alice. How is _this_ watercolor pastel painting of flowers any different from the other ten that you looked at?” Hatter wondered with his eyes rolled back into his head and his giant purple body slumped up against one of the flimsy card racks. A clerk nearby could now see how precarious this situation looked and was watching them carefully.

“And they _all_ say happy birthday!” Hare chimed in as he wandered up to Alice’s side. As he did so, she noticed that he was holding the pot of monkey cups off to one side of his chest, almost as if he had been breastfeeding them or something. He also randomly had a hiccup blanket over his shoulder. She scrunched up her face for a second before she had a response prepared.

“Yes, but they just don’t have that… oomf!” Alice told them, making sort of a “glitter exploding” gesture with her hand.

The both of them repeated the word several times to each other, also imitating the gesture.

“You know. A certain... _je ne sais quoi_?” She emphasized, even getting on her tippy toes. Hatter tilted his head and mimed the phrase in confusion while Hare tried to pronounce it. He even handed Hatter the plant so he could sort of pop his booty out and tip his toe, while still butchering the phrase spectacularly. Alice smiled and rolled her eyes. “It’s French. I learned it from my penpal, Yvette. It means. Well, it means that you don’t know what it means. But it’s something special.”

Hatter frowned.

“Alice, do you even know why we’re here?” He asked.

“Because we’ve been trying to figure it out for the past eternity.”

“We’ve been here for five or ten minutes tops. And _yes,_ I know why I’m-- DUM!” She hopped when she saw a familiar face pass the glass from the outside. The Tweedles were on their way to the front doors. Hatter and Hare cranked their necks as the bell on the door jingled, while Alice went to greet the twins without a moment’s hesitation, as if they were rescuing her. It would seem they might have also been whispering their hellos and other exchanges, which was just plain _rude_ , in Hatter’s opinion, based on the way he squished up his lips. He looked Hare in the eye and nothing further needed to be said.

Just as the Tweedles were heading back with Alice to the card section, they passed Hatter and Hare, who were on their way to the door. “Oh hey, you two!” Dee greeted, followed by some timid waving by Dum.  
  
“Hey guys, uh, we’re just gonna be going,” Hare told them, jutting his thumb out with a crooked smile. “It’s these poor little guys’ nap time.”

“Uhh yeah, and we’d hate to be a 4th and 5th wheel,” Hatter muttered, sort of coddling the monkey cups and shielding them from the Tweedles’ view. Hare was equally concerned about this and hovered around him, trying to put the hiccup blanket, which had a soft little cartoon cactus print, around Hatter’s arm and over the plant, going “sh sh sh…”

Dee cocked his brow and didn’t say a thing until they were gone.

Then, once they were:

“Why are they going around babying a patch of bright green dangling plant dicks?” Just as soon as he said it, Dum was seized by cackles… and more or less so was Alice. But hearing“Mr. Dee” talk like that was highly unusual.

She wanted to speak but couldn’t stop laughing and started sinking into herself. Dum had to pull her up before she hit the floor. “What?! What is it, Alice?! XD” He kept asking her.

“They’re not _plant weeners!_ ” She peeped into his ear, still trying to properly breathe again. “They’re m-monkey cups! They’re for the Rabbit! For his birthday!”

This started a whole new round of reeling between the Tweedles, which garnered the attention of the store clerk, who still wasn’t happy about Hatter leaning on all the card racks.

“Excuse me… do you three plan on buying anything?” He asked. He was old, uptight, and easy to dismiss.

“Oh yeah, sure,” Dee told him, swishing his hands before he let them fall on Dum and Alice’s shoulders. On their way to the cards, Alice tried to explain the meandering logic that had led her and her eccentric companions to and from the nursery today, with such an odd purchase.

“Well just make sure the Hare keeps the receipt, is all I’ve got to say!” Dum told her, earning a high-five from Dee.

“You guys wanna help me find something else?” She wondered, quite relieved just to be hearing sensible sentiments again. Dee thought about if he had any plans for the day.

“I’m game.”

“Yeah, so am I,” Dum said.

“A’ight. Let’s find something with some real _je ne sais quoi_ around here and then hit that sleep store across from Just Add Sugar!” Dee turned up his nose with a smug smile like he knew exactly what he was doing. And he probably did.  
  


& & &  
  


It was five-thirty in the afternoon and Hatter and Hare were tipped back in their chairs with their bellies full of crumpets, cookies, and jam. And tea, of course. Lots and lots of tea. Beside the Hare was one of those bouncy baby seats that he periodically tipped with his foot. And inside of the baby seat was the pot of monkey cups, wrapped up in the cactus blanket. Several crumpet crumbs were surrounding it. “Do you think it liked the crumpets?” Hatter was busy scraping food out of his teeth and was probably in a food coma when he answered:

“I mean, it ate them, didn’t it?”

“I think so.”

Just then, they saw the Tweedles and Alice frolicking by, flailing shopping bags and sipping slurpees. It was an immediate outrage. Then they slam-dumped the empty cups into Hatter’s trash-can outside the gate. “Oh hi, Hatter and Hare!” Dum shrieked cheerily in a blur.

“Bye, Hatter and Hare!” Dee shouted, just as they were opening their mouths. Alice apparently didn’t even notice where they were or whose house they were passing. It just looked like she had been having the time of her life, or something.

“You know, sometimes, Hare… I don’t know about that girl.”


	2. Surely This is the Right Gift

The day of Rabbit’s birthday, Hare was simply a sobbing mess, and Hatter was having to do a lot of bedraggled consoling that frankly he was not prepared for, in order to make this visit to the palace even possible.

“Come on, Hare,” he told him, trying to pry the plant from his needy little fingers. It was not unlike trying to pry a fly from a venus fly trap. Except this fly trap was worried about the fly and was sure that keeping it in its mouth forever was the only way to keep it safe. Just as it popped free from Hare’s desperate clasp, his arms collapsed in his chest and his knees hit the ground as he wailed:

“We shouldn’t have bought them so early in the week! Now they think I’m their ma, and they’ll miss me terribly!”

Hatter frowned, then realized that he was sort of petting one of them. “Hey, what about me?”

Hare shrugged as a tear pooled in his eye. “They’ll sort of miss you too.” Hatter turned to the fourth wall and just stared. “But every plant needs their ma!”

“Then the Rabbit can be their _godmother!_ Their _fairy-godmother_! Ahhh? He’ll let you visit, I’m sure.” Hatter’s proposal wasn’t all that bad. Still, Hare was caught up in a moment and could only sniffle, so his partner gave him a heavy pat on the shoulder and walked past him. “Now, I’m gonna take these guys out for one last walk, and then we’ll head to the palace. Take a hit off the hookah, if you need.”

& & &

The palace courtyard was unusually quiet that day. Hatter and Hare were thinking there’d either be some sort of bash already started, or they’d have to get into an argument with the Queen about letting Rabbit have free time on his birthday. Instead, they found him kicked up on the chaise lounge, being fanned with a giant banana leaf by Alice. Totally oblivious to their presence, as he was wearing a thick cushy sleep mask and slurping up a tropical smoothie with an umbrella, Rabbit had more or less slipped into nirvana, or as close to it as an old servant would ever get. On the nearest table was a catalogue for the sleep store Alice had visited with the Tweedles, there were brand new, fuzzy wuzzy bunny slippers on the floor next to him, and even a gift basket filled with soaps, bath salts, and the most basic bitch teas Hatter had ever seen. Not that he would say anything.

But he had to say _something_ , because poor ole Hare was still waiting for his hit off the hookah to kick in and had red eyes that could be seen from a mile away. He even forgot to stand and face their friends. Hatter grabbed him by the shoulders and turned him in the right direction.

“Rabbbitttttt!” He shouted at the bunny.

“Mmmmmmm...yyyyyesss???” Hold up a moment. The peaceful smile on the Rabbit’s face slowly fell as he realized he had heard the voice of someone he was sure in the past had never helped him achieve any sort of serenity. He snatched off the sleep mask. “Oh, hello... Hatter. Hare.” He was sort of leaning back and away from them now. Luckily, he couldn’t see that Alice was behind him, trying to hold it together.

“A little birdie told us it was your birthday today!”

“A little birdie?” Rabbit scrunched up his face, confused.

“He means me,” Alice said sweetly over his shoulder.

“Oh, but you’aaa~ not a bird!”

“Yeah, but she overhears all kinds of things, like a bird on a tree-branch!” Hatter explained, to which Alice nodded, “and that was the only way we were going to know it was your birthday, you secretive, sly, s-selectively friendly…s-senior citizen--”

“You had better get on with whatever you came here for, Hatta~...” Rabbit muttered, just as Hatter felt a tickle in his throat.

“Ahem! Yes.” He turned to Hare, who had been trying to blot a tear with the cactus blanket without anyone noticing. “Uh, Hare, why don’t you take the blanket off and show Rabbit this wondeeerfulll, spectaccuullar giftttt, ahhhh?” Hatter tried his best to sprinkle all the razzle-dazzle of two people onto the reveal, but no matter of twisting and twirling elicited much of a reaction out of Rabbit once he saw under the blanket. And he only had one thing to say.

“My, those are awfully phallic, aren’t they…”

Alice just bit her lip.

“What’s ‘phallic’?” Hatter questioned, not yet sure if he should feel validated or offended. Alice shrugged, as she didn’t know either. Rabbit immediately regretted that it had ever fallen from his mouth.

“Uhhh… Well what are they, anyway?” He diverted.

The Tweedles, meanwhile, had been oo’ing and ah’ing at all the boring af statues the Queen put up in one of her hallways, like really putting on an oscar worthy performance out of the sincerest desire for Rabbit to have some alone time with his gifts in that chair. When they were back to the courtyard with her majesty, however, they were having a really hard time keeping a straight face while a clueless Hatter and an unreasonably forlorn Hare waved around the ~~bright green plant dicks~~ monkey cups and pitched them like they were going to be Rabbit’s newest obsession.

All they had to do was step into Alice’s vicinity and make eye-contact with her and she was already giggling.

“So you see, Rabbit, this isn’t just some midlife-crisis window-sill filler… set these up at your table on bingo nights and you’ll have all the bunny ladies crowding around, knowing you’re up to something.”

“And what exactly am I up to?” Rabbit cocked his eyebrow, quite distracted by their striking resemblance to, well, cocks.

“Bein’ a plant daddy,” Hatter told him, smiling and nodding like he was very sure of himself, “to a hardcore plant that’ll eat all the bugs in your garden. Even frogs, too!”

“ _Ewwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!”_ Was Rabbit’s first reaction. Then he leaned forward and tapped one of the cups before the Queen belted from behind him.

“That’s BARBARIC.” Immediately, Rabbit fell right on his face on the floor beside the lounge, then had to prop himself up and heave a little when he realized she had been so close to him all along. “Why would you get Rabbit a gift like that!”

Hare had recoiled just as much as Hatter, but he looked more defeated than anything else that neither of them were impressed with his gift, especially now that they were his babies that he’d raised for a week. Once again, Hatter had to do the explaining, patting Hare’s hand, which was squeezing his arm, all the while.

“We thought he needed some excitement!”

“He has PLENTY of excitement around here!”

Rabbit darted his eyes around. He wasn’t about to disagree with her, because technically she was right, it’s just… it wasn’t the good kind of excitement. The Tweedles and Alice were feeling even surer about their gifts by now.

“Well then _really_ , this plant can keep up with him, is all we’re saying,” Hatter told her, not even missing a beat. “Oh look, it already likes him!”

For the first time in the last five minutes, Hare had something to say: “It _does_?”

Hatter gave him _a look_. “Uhhh, of course it does, _Hare_. Hand it over. Wouldn’t want to keep these two parted.” Try as he may to sort of direct the pot towards the birthday bunny himself, Hare was sort of squeezing it close and didn’t know how to let go. Rabbit, meanwhile, looked completely flabbergasted as he sat there on the floor beneath those looming plant dongs. The Queen threw up her hands, which just elicited more of the Tweedles’ giggling.

“You have GOT to be kidding me!”

“Uhh, they mean well, Your Majesty!” Alice tried to step in, being the noble child among the group and all that. “I mean if you think about it… it’s just as silly as any other gift they’ve given him…”

“Hmph, you’re right… there’s no way this is a joke,” her Majesty answered back in a deep voice, with her chin tucked into her neck. Then all five of them just kept watching Hatter and Hare fuss over the pot.

“Hare, just let go! One finger at a time. Come on, now.”

“I’m trying!” Hare pouted.

“I highly doubt that!”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be a mother!”

“No, but I know what it’s like to live with one!”

“DON’T shame me for being an empath!” Hare growled through his tears, still with the cactus blanket thrown over his shoulder.

“Alright you two, _listen_!” Rabbit professed, just before he scurried to his feet and yanked at his vest, then patted a few fuzzballs away. “I’ll keep the plant for a few days and see how it goes, but I want He’a~ _on call_ at all times! He obviously has a grrreener thumb than I~, but I appreciate your thinking of me on my birthdehh~, so I shall try my best. Ehh… provided her Majesty approves.”

They all slowly turned to her in suspense, looking somewhere on a spectrum between apprehensive and hopeful. And then there were the Tweedles, who were just about to whip out their popcorn bowls. The Queen squinted at them for a moment before she decided it was not her circus, not her monkeys. Well, hopefully.

“Fine. But I don’t want to hear a thing about it. Call the Hare if it gives you any trouble, and if _he_ can’t help you, _hohohhhh_ ,” her eyes bulged as she cut her hands into the air, “it’s straight back to the nursery.”

“Of course, of course. Ehh… thank you.” Rabbit nodded to the Queen awkwardly before he turned to Hare and opened his hands to receive the plant. Hare just stared at him until Hatter leaned into him.

“Give Rabbit the plant, Hare.”

“Eheheheh! Right,” he said, his arms extending out with a tremble to relinquish his babies to his favorite frenemy. Rabbit took hold of the pot and tried not to cringe as the dongs sweeping over the side brushed his forearm. Try as he may to bring them closer to his chest, Hare came with them. He laughed and gave them a better tug, which prompted Hare to tug them back. Before everyone knew it they were bouncing back and forth. Finally, Hatter took Hare’s shoulders and held him in place, so that Rabbit could pluck the monkey cups out of his motherly smother, and inspect them with none of the same sort of affection.

“Eheheh, loveleh~ loveleh~~...” he trailed. “Well, I’d better- eh, put these somewhere. T-thank you, everyone, for the birthday wishes and gifts… You’re all _too kind_.”

“OH WAIT, RABBIT,” Hare screeched, wriggling out of Hatter’s grasp and pulling a baby bag out of nowhere.

“This is all of his stuff!” When Rabbit took it from him, his arm plummeted as if he had just taken a bag of bowling balls.

“Gee, thanks, I feel so prepared now~” He said through his teeth to the fourth wall. Then he fluttered his fingers and rolled away. Hare looked at least somewhat reassured as Hatter patted him on the back and he blew his nose.


	3. Maybe It Wasn't the Right Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rabbit's friends realize for him that things can't carry on the way they're going.

“Yes, I’ve watered him,” Rabbit said into the telephone as he hunched over the chair in his room, squeezing the bridge of his nose. The slice of sky that he could see out the window was a deep royal blue, dotted with stars, like a pincushion. A meager desk lamp illuminated the corner of his otherwise dark and cramped servant quarters. He was exhausted and damp with sweat. His feet were swelling inside his blades, which were only half undone. Still, he answered accordingly: “Yes, he’s been getting all his bedtime stories.” Whatever he was asked next prompted him to peer over at the monkey cups, which were sitting on a tall end table in the moonlight. “No, he doesn’t look cold to me. I have yet to see the plahnt shiver~... No, not at all. Are you sure that…?”

The voice in the receiver went on and on as Rabbit glanced at the clock and sighed. After an exasperated pause, he yanked his blades off of his feet and got up so that he could hold the phone next to one of the monkey cups. All the while, his eyes were dead with fatigue. He put the phone back up to his ear. “H-Hare. Hare, it’s me again. You’ve said a long enough goodnight. Yes, he heard it, for sure… Now I really must be going. Mhm. Will do!”

_Click!_

Following this phone call was a moan so thorough that for a moment he forgot he was a bunny. For a moment, he just felt like one big moan that could never end if he was to properly express his frustration.

He gave not a second thought to shutting the lights off and leaving the plant in the dark as he waddled with aches and pains all the way to the bathroom. “My, I used to think the Hare had lost his mind,” he muttered to himself as he stepped into the shower. “But I-, I really had no idea.”

& & &

Back at Hare’s house, he was dunking a teabag into his sunflower-patterned cup, over and over, until Hatter had to stop him. “You know that doesn’t help it steep any faster, Hare!”

Hare just fixed a scrunchy, frustrated frown on him.

“Rabbit thinks I’m CRAZY,” he told him.

“Of course he does, sugar-nut. You’re the maddest of all of us, really.” Hatter had cupped his hand around Hare’s to ease his jitters, and had started to brush his fingers affectionately, when Hare swatted it away.

“I’m SERIOUS! He thinks I’ve gone to _looney-town!”_

“Well of all the places to vacation, that’s really not the worst,” Hatter reassured him as he went for a nibble off his biscotti, but then he turned around and realized Hare was a huff and a puff away from kicking him out. “Okay okay, _look_ : it’s not exactly new that Rabbit thinks we have a few screws loose. But he _is_ taking care of the plant...right?” Hare hesitantly nodded. “Well, then what’s there to be upset about? Hell, there’s plenty of things I do for you that make no sense to me at all, but that’s just what you do when you care.”

“You think Rabbit cares about me?” Hare wondered in all sincerity. Hatter had to think about it.

“I dunno,” he finally answered before he went back to his biscotti.

& & &

Little did they know that _looney-town_ was exactly where Rabbit was going to go, at least in his opinion. Hare was a menace from then on.

Oh, yes: he called every few hours. Sometimes when Rabbit was in precarious positions or deep in concentration. “Need I remind you, you are no longer the guardian anymore!” Rabbit growled under his breath into the receiver of his razor-phone while he was pruning the plants of the east wing terrace.

“I-I, I know that, Rabbit, it’s just it feels like-- I don’t know.”

“Oh, you had betta~ not be suggesting that I don’t take it seriouslehhh… The plahnt is sitting right here with me while I snip the begonias!” Rabbit insisted. Hare could only gasp.

“Rabbit! I’m surprised at you! That must be _traumatizing_ for him! To think he might have his dingalings suffer the same exact fate!”

“I’m sorry,” Rabbit started, before he thwapped the phone on his hip a few times, “did I hear correctly, and you’re suggesting the plahnt will think I’m about to castrate it?!” Out loud, Hare had to agree that it did sound pretty absurd. “I’m quite aware the plahnt thrives on its, erm, cups… Mr. Hare. The whole time we’ve been ar~guing, it’s been feasting on the mosquitos. See?! I’m better at this than you give me credit for~...”

“You’re right, you’re right. I’m sorry. This is seriously the LAST time. I won’t call you for the rest of the day.”

Rabbit coughed.

“The next 72 hours.”

Rabbit coughed again.

“36?”

“You’re going backwards, but I’ll take it. Leave me be until dinnah~ time tomorrow, PLEASE. For goodness’ sake, I’ve babysat much more in my lifetime than you ever have.”

“Yes, Rabbit. T-tell him I love--!”

But before Hare could finish his sentence, he heard the Queen screaming in the background, followed by a click.

~

Rabbit was still being swallowed by moans of cosmic proportion by the end of the week, and jumping any time his phone made a sound, which Alice noted when she went to visit him.

“So really, he’s _upset_ that I’ve missed his tea party?!” Rabbit grumbled after she relayed the news.

“Well, and yesterday’s, and the day before’s…”

“That Hatter should know by now that his neurotic partner would have something to do with it--Ogh!” Rabbit almost sat on his feather duster, but just as he rolled to the side, Alice snatched it from beneath him. “Thank you, Alice.” And then he snatched it back so he could bob it up and down as he continued. “This may be the first time I’ve ever regretted having a bi~rthday. I mean _what even is the point_ in giving someone a gift if you don’t trust it to them?! Should have kept the plahnt himself.”

“Well, you could always give it... _back_?”

“I cahn’t, Alice.”

Alice looked surprised when he said that. “Why? Are you starting to feel _attached_ to it, too? Awwh, this is so cute! It’s like when people who hate cats take in a stray and it melts their heart.” Alice cupped her hands together over her chest and smiled at him. Rabbit just darted his eyes around.

“Nooo… _Noo…_ It’s not that… It’s just I’m offended he doesn’t believe in me! And he really thinks too highly of himself. Why, that plahnt has never mentioned him once since it arrived! He’s imagined it has any sort of attachment to him. Truly, a Freudian projection, all this is.”

“What’s Freudian?” Alice scrunched up her face. Rabbit did the same, then swatted the air dismissively.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older.”

& & &

Over at the Tweedles’, they were sitting outside their house on the porch, listening to Alice tell them of Rabbit’s woes. Coincidentally, they were snacking on a giant bowl of popcorn laid out on the patio table beside a pitcher of fruit punch. “You know, at first I thought it was funny,” Dee started, “but now I feel pretty bad for him. I mean, we _all_ know how annoying Hare can be when he’s got a -- well, no pun -- _hair_ up his butt.”

“Maybe his mama’s putting him up to this,” Dum wondered.

“Oh, God. You’re _right_. Of anyone, she’d lay it on thick about sticking to what you started. Didn’t his old man leave before he was born?” By now, Alice was just jumping her hand back and forth between her mouth and the salty, buttery snack before her… like a gossip-hungry chipmunk.

Suddenly, Hatter came slinking around from behind some bushes, looking over his shoulder as he did so. Then he slumped into their mailbox and frowned at them. Dum couldn’t help but notice that he had jerked the post of the mailbox slightly sideways. “Hey, you guys… Ooof, I just _had_ to get awayyy…” Hatter said, just before he realized what he had walked in on. “OH, so _this_ is what you’re doing instead of coming to my tea party!”

Dee decided to ignore what was obvious judgement dripping from Hatter’s observation when he answered: “Yes. It seemed like the best alternative now that we know the Hare is going through some sort of… post-partum depression?”

“Geez, guys, _I dunno_ ,” Hatter rolled his eyes, “but you _don’t_ have to worry about that. He hasn’t been to my parties either. We’re fighting.”

“Fighting?!” Alice finally interjected.

“Mhm. Mhm.” Hatter nodded fervently before he walked up to take a swipe of the popcorn. “Hm, not bad.” They all agreed and went back to snacking. 

“What are you fighting about?” Alice wondered.

“He’s all over the place. Says I’m being insensitive,” Hatter replied before he popped another kernel into his mouth.

“Oh man, this has gotten out of control,” Dum said.

“ _How true that is!_ ”

They all agreed they had to do something about it: they just weren’t sure what. “Rabbit says he doesn’t want to give the plant back because of reasons to do with his dignity or something,” Dee started.

“Well maybe we can buy Rabbit _another_ pot of monkey cups, and give the ones Hare bonded with back to him,” Alice suggested.

“Not gonna be possible. I already looked into it: every nursery in Wonderland is sold out,” Hatter told them. “Like, _every single one!_ Are they some kind of a fad I didn’t know about?!” With a terribly stern face, Dee laid his hand on top of his.

“No, Hatter. No.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dum chimed in, also frowning at him. Then finally, they succumbed to their chuckles. Hatter didn’t see what was so funny.

“Okay, so we can’t buy more of the monkey cups at a n _ursery_ , but maybe we can buy them off somebody else. You know, put an ad in the paper,” Alice suggested, trying to ignore the awkwardness.

“Now THERE’S an idea!” Hatter turned to her to exclaim.

“Shouldn’t be a problem for us. We could get it circulated in _all_ of the newspapers,” Dum said, his face lighting up.

“For a small fee, of course,” Dee added in. Hatter and Alice cocked their brows before they reached into their pockets, in unison. Alice handed over a crinkly five dollar bill. Hatter just had a handful of buttons.

“You guys don’t have any… _real_ money?” Dee asked, eying the offering like a cat parent whose fur-child had just brought them back a dead spider as a gift. “I’m sorry, Alice. I mean, we need _wobucks_. And Hatter, what even?!”

“Hey hey hey. These are _extremely_ valuable buttons! You know, in my pops’ day, this _was_ currency!”

“ _Was_ it?” Dum wondered.

“ _No_ ,” Dee answered.

“Well it _was_ in the Hatter house…” Hatter mumbled, just as a few of them rolled off the table. “Oh shit,” he went, before he scuttled off to catch them.

“Nevermind. We’ll take care of the ad. In the meantime, let’s just hope this doesn’t get ugly,” Dee told them. Alice was rather nervous all of a sudden:

“Ugly?!”

“Yeah, one time, Rabbit and the Hare were so mad at each other, they had a staring contest,” Dum explained. The look on Alice’s face said it all. Just then, Hatter jumped up from under the table-top.

“Oh I remember that! It went on for hours! Best fifty-one out of a hundred!” Alice was still just staring at everybody. “Mhm. Yeah, it was awful. They both went home in tears. Since… you know… they hardly got to blink. Hare was on… eye drops… for days.” The Tweedles sort of nodded, but they were totally over it by now and had crept out of their chairs. Hatter cleared his throat. “By the way, can I stay here with you guys?”


	4. How Can We Get the Gift Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hatter and the Tweedles discover that the Duchess has a spare plant to trade, but she's not keen on letting it go without some real good compensation.

It was a couple of days before the Tweedles’ ad in all of Wonderland’s newspapers was finally answered. Dee was unequivocally happy about this, even though he spat out his coffee as soon as he saw the name of the responder. Leaning in the doorframe of the kitchen, he took a few more sips and watched as Dum and Hatter sat criss-crossed on the living room floor, in their pajamas. Both were held captive by the glow of the television screen; leaning right, left, right, left, as they pounded on two crayola-blue controllers.

“Ahem, we… got something in the mail,” he said, though his words were lost under a cacophony of hooting. “You guys.”

“AHHHHH MAN, how are you so _good_ at this?!” Hatter shouted, practically into Dum’s ear, and sounding more angry than impressed.

“I play it twenty times a day!”

“Damn right, he does,” Dee muttered before he marched in front of the screen. “You guys. We got a response to the ad. Somebody has our monkey cups!” Dum looked up to him with just one of his eyes squinted.

“Monkey what?” Dee frowned and unplugged the console.

“The plant? The one we need to give Rabbit so we can take back Hare’s!”

“Okay, well chop chop and pick it up, will you?” Hatter just swished his wrist and fell back into a nearby bean bag, which Dee did not appreciate.

“Oh, no. You’re _both_ coming with me. It’s the _Duchess._ ” Hatter and Dum had no beverages of their own, but had they, they would have been spitting them all over the place, too. Hatter seemed incredulous:

“ _Duchess-_ Duchess?!”

“You mean the one the Queen’s always getting her tits in a twist about,” Dum tried to clarify.

“ _Yes,_ that one.”

Hatter turned to Dum: “She’s not exactly the person I’d picture having a plant like that.”

Dum just shrugged: “Maybe she’s lonely.”

“HAH!” Dee threw his head back. “She’s a straight-up ho.” Neither of his companions were sure why he had made that assertion with such gusto, and they didn’t want to ask, either. “Anyway, look. We all have to go because she won’t tell us what she wants. And normally I would argue, but she’s _the Duchess_. So hurry and put some clothes on! We have to be there by noon sharp.”

“Give or take five minutes?” Hatter wondered.

“Sharp! It means get up off your ass right now!” Dee shouted at him. Hatter’s brow collapsed into one fat, blond caterpillar before he jumped up and out of the room. “Dum, make sure he doesn’t take out that ironing board. And don’t let him find the tweezers again; once he starts, he doesn’t stop!”

Dum knew exactly what he was talking about but was still angsting over the mystery of it all. “What does he _pluck_?!”

“ _I don’t know!”_ Dee answered, with his eyes bugging out of his head.

& & &

At twelve o’clock _sharp_ , the Wonderland bus dropped them off at the bottom of a long winding driveway. It was a hike up to her estate. Even after they checked in on the intercom at the gate, they were looking at, who knows, a quarter of a mile of less than tasteful statues and topiary.

“You’d think a groundskeeper with a golf cart or something would give us a lift! Sheesh!” Hatter grumbled, but he was the notably less outdoorsy one of the three, so they couldn’t really sympathize. What made Hatter sweat was just a warm-up for the Tweedles. With a sly smile, Dee cracked a joke he knew only he would think was funny:

“Hey Dum, why don’t you have Hatter climb on your back?”

Dum: “Uhhh…”

Finally, they were standing at more gates, and another intercom, which was answered by some sort of footman… butler? Who knows. But they could see him through the gate, chilling in the shade of the marble pillars at the entrance of the estate. “Are you at the top or the bottom of the grounds? If you’re just at the bottom near the country road, we can send for our groundskeeper. Oh wait, that’s right, we don’t have one anymore… Nevermind.”

Dee’s eyes couldn’t have rolled any further back: “We’re literally looking at you. You can see us.”

“Uhh, Dee, I’m _pretty_ sure that’s not how the word ‘literally’ is used,” Hatter managed to say in a surprisingly pitying tone for someone who was still dabbing the sweat out of his sideburns.

“Well, you obviously aren’t aware that the words of living languages acquire _different_ meanings in colloquial speech after time, which do not make _literal_ , dictionary sense, but everybody still _gets it_ if they’re not being a smart-ass…” Dee trailed.

“I beg your pardon?” The butler asked.

“Uh, nothing.”

“Oh, wait! I think I do see you! Uh, be right there!” Dee pinched the bridge of his nose as the butler appeared to scurry from his post, but then took an unreasonably slow and casual pace as he crossed the Duchess’ ginormous front lawns separating the two parties. Dum leaned into Dee, thinking aloud:

“Somebody needs to get him some rollerblades.”

& & &

Nobody had been talking for about five minutes now. They were all in the drawing room, not quite with both asscheeks on their seats because they were hoping this exchange would be quick. The Duchess, meanwhile, had been finicking about the temperature of her tea and whether the sugar cubes were the right shape, hardly making eye-contact with her guests, and wondering when the pianist was going to arrive. Dum decided to occupy himself by grabbing a candy from a nearby glass bowl, but then everyone was just listening to the wrapper crinkling. It went on for so long, their eyes were glued to his hands as they wondered why he was having so much trouble.

Dee swatted his wrist and cleared his throat. “Uh, we really don’t need any music, your… Grace.”

The Duchess shook her head at him very stubbornly and crossed her arms, until a cellist arrived instead, hauling in a cello of Hatter’s height and getting situated. Another of her servants came to whisper in her ear. With a crinkle in her brow, she waved for the cellist to start playing, then looked to her guests about to speak.

“So sorry you had to wait like that,” she told them. “I don’t speak without musical accompaniment anymore.” Her guests were out of appropriate words, though it didn’t seem to faze her. “Oh yes. New decree. And I have much more than just _this_ gentleman; I have an oboist in the dining room, a bassoonist in the courtyard, a harpist in the master bedroom, and violinists in all the hallways. They follow me around.”

“That’s…” Dum pushed himself to answer, though he copped out when it came time to add an adjective.

“--Going to be the newest trend, I know," the Duchess finished for him.

“I sure hope not,” Hatter stage-whispered into the Tweedles’ ears. “Rabbit only knows how to play a saxophone, and even the Queen would get tired talking over that…”

“Ahem!” Came from the Duchess, in the peppiest, highest pitch. “So you were saying you had some spectacular offer for this- this plant I’ve had in the garden for ages?” Dee wasn’t sure if she was totally positive the plant was what they had talked about, and said as much. “No, no, I’m aware. The bright green one that resembles a man’s private parts.” She nodded. “It’s always catching little creepy-crawlies. I even found a dead mouse in it once.”

Hatter gasped.

“Well, we don’t exactly have an offer in mind, but… Well, what _could_ we exchange for it, your Grace?” Dee asked her. She looked down her nose at them and pondered.

“Mmmwell, I don’t need money -- clearly. And it might not be easy to imagine by the beauty and luxury of my estate, but I’m so _over_ material. No, I want a service.” Dee shrugged:

“Sure, we could do that. We could... build you a bird-house. Or Hatter, you could design her a hat.”

“Material, material,” the Duchess waved her hand as she said. “You know what I really want…” She leaned in. “Some company for a dull night in. It really does get quite lonely around here.” Dum shot in Dee’s direction:

“But Dee, you said she was a straight up ho--”

“--Hahahahaha, a straight up h-ho- _wholesome_ woman, I said,” Dee corrected him, with his hand firmly over his mouth. “Are you _really_ asking for what it sounds like?!”

“A dick for a dick? Yes,” she stated matter of factly. The cellist was clearly just trying his best to ignore the conversation and play on as if this were any other sophisticated gathering. He was probably also in denial that this was the current state of his employment. Either way, Hatter and the Tweedles couldn’t help but glance at him. She _was_ soliciting prostitution, after all. “Oh, don’t worry about him. They’ve all signed an NDA.”

“Fine! I’ll do it!” Dum shot up and shouted, with a sort of resignation to the fact that she probably had her eye on him anyway.

“Actually,” the Duchess piped up, causing his shoulders to deflate, “I’ll take _him_.” She pointed to Hatter, who straightened up immediately, as if something very cold had jabbed him where it didn’t belong. “Oh yes, I’ve heard good things about him.” Hatter mimed it back to himself as Dee bore into him:

“Hatter, is there something you’ve never told us?”

“What?! No! The only one who would have _anything_ to say is-- _oh my GOD._ Did Hare tell somebody about my--”

“Yes,” and “of course he did”, fell out of Dee and Dum’s mouths simultaneously.

“He’s prouder of it than _you_ are,” Dee went on. Hatter’s face was now as red as the Queen’s dress.

Another “ahem!” came from the Duchess to let them know they were going off the rails, here. Dum slowly dropped back down to his seat. Then Hatter found that they had all shut up and stared at him as the rich voice of the cello weaved a fanciful tune throughout the room.

“OHH!” Hatter threw up his hands. “I can’t _believe_ I’m being objectified like this!”

“This is the… first time?” The Duchess wondered, for all of them. Hatter stared off in space a moment before he squinted. Dum, being the less tactful one of the brothers, said what he felt he needed to:

“Oh, come on Hatter. Isn’t it worth it, if it’ll make the Hare happy again?”

“Oh, _Hare and I_ are going to be having a _serious_ talk once this is through.” Although the Hatter glared at everyone, they were still just waiting for his approval. “Oh, _fine_. What do you want me to bring?” He asked, as if this were a friendly sleepover.

“Nothing but your fine, flamboyant self, dear fellow. Now do we have an accord?” She stood up and extended her hand. To Hatter’s chagrin, Dee was the one who met her with a good shake.


	5. This Gift Has Made Everything Worse for Everybody

The telephone at Hare’s had been exploding for hours the following afternoon, and he could see very well from the caller ID that every call was coming from the Hat House. At least, _he_ could recognize that: the actual name he’d put in for Hatter was _Sugar Cookie_...

Either way, he wasn’t answering. In fact, he was blasting polka on his record player and cleaning his house furiously, in his underwear, and could barely hear the phone at this point. Obviously, this made him very unprepared for the sight of his “sugar cookie” standing in his living room in what looked like a cold sweat. His finger had just brought up the needle of Hare’s record player.

“Hatter?!” He shrieked, trying to block out his chest with an economy sized jug of Lysol. He might have found body glitter in the bathroom he was just polishing, and applied it generously wherever he thought appropriate.

“ _Oh my God, Hare. Hfff..._ Why didn’t you… _hfff..._ answer your…. _hfff..._ phone?!” Hatter asked through huffs and puffs. Hare’s face fell into a defensive glare as he side-stepped away from his approaching partner.

“Well, the first three times, I was busy! After that, it was just to stick it to you for harassing me!”

Hatter was now equally offended as he followed Hare into the kitchen, who was sprinting for the over-sized Oprah t-shirt he had flung over a stool. "It didn’t occur to you that it might be an emergency?!” He wondered. Hare, in all his haste, couldn’t seem to get the shirt over his head.

“Well!” He started from under the shirt, but he had to keep tugging. “Well!” Hatter’s breath was beyond bated as he watched the struggle and was just about to intervene. Finally, the collar stretched past his ears and he yanked the shirt down over his body glitter art. “Well, _is it_?!” He finally asked.

Hatter tried to stay focused. He had definitely seen the glitter art. “Well I-I mean, I mean--” He stammered.

“Did you forget we’re _fighting?!_ ”

Hatter just blew a raspberry.

“...‘Cause we’re totally _fighting,_ Hatter. And until our friends throw together a banquet and trick us into both coming so that we’ll be shoved into an intimate dance number together, I’m not going to move past this! You know the Hare family rule: _stick to what you start!_ ” Hare was very adamant about this, Hatter could see, so he had no choice but to hover erratically around him as he crammed his cleaning supplies back into the cabinet below the sink.

“Well, can we pause the fighting for just a while? I’m in a real pickle, and you’re the _only_ one who can help me! ...As has been demonstrated in ways you’re not even aware, just in these past two minutes. I _need_ you!”

Hare stood up in front of him and squinted, then answered his urgency with complacent pats on his shoulders.

“Of course you do, Hatter. You’re nothing but a lost little button without me, and that’s _really_ something you need to work on.”

Hatter watched with his mouth gaping as Hare sauntered off to the fridge to drink carrot juice straight from the jug. _“HAAAAARE!_ You’re being very dismissive right now -- yes, you are -- and it’s _not_ appreciated, and, a-and, and… there’s another issue that I’m-- I’m just not gonna get into right now because--”

“Hatter,” Hare stopped him, rolling his eyes, completely unaware of how ridiculous Oprah’s giant head on his garment looked. “Could you _not_ make it about _you_ , right now? _Please_?”

“I’m not! _This is_ _ **literally**_ _all about you_ \-- oh shit. I did it, too,” Hatter realized, covering his lips with his fingers.

“Would you do me a favor and let yourself out, as care-free as you let yourself _in_? And I want my key back.”

“LOOK, all I need is your best booty shorts, a condom, the fruitiest most glittery lube you’ve got -- and those fuzzy pink handcuffs, if you can find them.” As Hatter obliviously listed the items, Hare’s face was beginning to look like a steaming empanada. “Or if nothing else, a crash course on pole dancing, if you can spare the time… would. be. **SO** amazingly helpful right now.”

“Hatter, you need to _get out of my house_ as fast as those magnificent, mile-long legs of yours can carry you. Because if we weren’t fighting right now,” Hare seethed as he crept closer and closer to Hatter, “after what I just _heard_??? WE WOULD BE FIGHTING RIGHT NOW!” Hatter jumped and bumbled his way out of the room before Hare shouted: “MY KEY? _PLEASE_?!”

In, he scrambled once more! To rummage through his pockets and plop Hare’s house key into his out-stretched hand. Then he was gone. Hare waited for the sound of his front door being shut before he let out a long, haggered sigh. And then called up Rabbit to ask about the plant again.  
  


& & &  
  


Hatter had not even made it back to his house when the Tweedles spotted him and did somersaults all up in his face, as they had been looking for him and were quite alarmed to see the state he was in. “Hatter! Aren’t you supposed to be catching a bus to the Duchess by now?!” Dum asked him, hopping in front of him so he would know how serious the question was.

In a flustered explosion, the Hatter threw his arms up in the air and shouted at him: “I would have been, but- ugh, _geez_ , maybe Hare doesn’t want back the plant afterall!” Dee was taken aback:

“Wait wait wait. You didn’t _tell_ Hare what you were doing, did you?!” Hatter was tugging at his collar and sucking in air as they gave him an up-and-down.

“Nooo, I didn’t, but at this rate, he probably wouldn’t even _appreciate_ it!” Hatter spat back at them. Dum shook his head and turned up his palms as he said:

“It’s the whole reason you’re fighting! Of course he’ll be--”

“No no no, you guys just don’t get it. There’s a lot more nuance to our fights than you’d think. And when Hare wants to be bitchy, he makes sure that if, i-i-if he were being graded on it… _**he would get an A+**_.”

“Okay _Hatter_ , this is beside the point. _What are you doing here_? What’s holding you up?!” Dee asked. Hatter’s chest pumped up and down as he glared straight at them and dug a tiny scroll out of his pocket. Then he held it right next to his face and unfurled the long list that had been written on it.

“What is _that?_ ” Dee asked him.

“Demands,” he stated.

“Demands?!” Dum clarified.

“DEMANDS!” Hatter emphasized. This did not clarify _anything_ for Dee:

“I thought she said just to bring your ‘normal, charming self’ or whatever!” Hatter jerked his head left and right, almost like Hare’s robot bust he had created of him, when it was short-circuiting.

“She changed her mind! Called me at the crack of dawn to tell me she had ‘nothing for me to wear’ and that all of her sex toys were _no good_!!!!!” Before he could say anymore, Dee slung his arm around his shoulders and reeled him in.

“Let’s keep our voices down… shall we? Can you do that?” He looked Hatter in the eye, who slowly began to nod, though he did it with the poutiest of faces. “Let me see this list.” Without either of them moving, Hatter snaked his arm across his chest and offered the scroll up between them. Dee squinted suspiciously at it.

“Oh… oh Lord,” he trailed.

“What?! What does it say?!” There was nowhere for Dum to hop so he could look over their shoulders, so he darted up like a frog with his back to their chests, to poke his head up and tug the scroll down towards him.

“Oh… yep. Straight up… straight up ho--” He finally concurred, just as the two taller members of their party broke up this awkward man-huddle they had found themselves in.

“Well, Hare’s the one with all the ho stuff around here, and he’s not sharing!” Hatter told them. “I need something, or she won’t follow up with the deal!” Dee recognized his panic, now, but he wasn’t too concerned:

“Okay, calm down. We can get all this stuff at the wobuck store! And a slurpee while we’re there. I mean, probably--”

“ _No._ We cannot get _booty-shorts_ at the wobuck store!” Hatter’s stern declaration made Dee quite exasperated by this point:

“ _Hatter!_ ” He stage-whispered. “ _Stop shouting about booty-shorts! One of us is just going to have to ask nicely. We’ll say it’s for us.”_

“ **Fine** , I’ll do it!!!!” Dum volunteered without a moment’s hesitation.

“No, it can’t be you,” Hatter claimed, causing him to deflate once again.

“Why not?!” Dee asked.

“Pardon my French, but there’s not enough junk in that trunk.” Hatter’s explanation immediately made both of the Tweedles’ shoulders tense. “Hare won’t buy it! It’s gotta be you, Tweedle Dee.”

Dee straightened up with his mouth open: “What, _I_ have the junk?!”

Hatter frowned. “You sound like I wasn’t complimenting you.”

“So then _I’m_ the one you’re insulting,” Dum jumped in. Hatter was quickly realizing he had multiple fires to stamp out.

“No no no no no. Can I start over?”

“No, you can’t. There isn’t time! I’ll go to the Hare’s! But I want every single button you’ve ever owned, and the address to the best pawn shop in Wonderland.”

Hatter sighed.  
  


& & &  
  


After the persistent rapping on his front door finally brought Hare to check through the peephole, he opened it up and tilted his head. Luckily, now, he was dressed. “Ahhh, Tweedle Dee! What brings ya by?”

As Hare shined a bright, toothy grin on him, Dee had never been stiffer or more perplexed by the words that came out of his own mouth in reply: “Hare! Hey, so. Yeah. I was wondering. Do you happen to have a good pair of _booty shorts_ that I can borrow?”

The perplexity all transferred to Hare, now, who was momentarily frozen by it. Then he realized that he should be quite offended.

“You’re just here to get them for Hatter, aren’t you?” Hare guessed correctly, to which Dee had a retort totally ready, but he wasn’t able to get a word in edgewise just yet. “Because if you _are_ , I will not be sharing! He already came by and interrupted my “me time” for this! And it was frankly _unacceptable_ given the situation!!! In case you didn’t know,” Hare divulged, with his eyes going from buggy to shifty as he leaned towards him, “we’re fighting!” He nodded with vigor and puffed up his chest.

“Yes, I know, but you have it _alllll_ confused! Really,” Dee finally answered, with all sorts of practiced charm.

“I do?”

Dee nodded surely with his eyes closed, feeling a little wisp of embarrassment. “You do. You see, it was Hatter who was asking for me.” Hare thought this through thoroughly before the anger in his expression melted into wistful disdain.

“Well that was a dumb idea: he shoulda known he’d fall flat on his face with that one. I thought he was pretending he was going to get laid tonight or something! HAHAHAH.” Beneath Hare’s deep belly-laugh were a few forced chuckles from Tweedle Dee.

“Nahhh, like he would _ever_ ,”Dee replied, which didn’t hit Hare the way he intended. He cleared his throat: “Uh, no, the thing is… Well, I’m auditioning for a part at the community playhouse.”

“Uhhhh… what is it, like a stripper or something? Hatter mentioned he needed advice about pole-dancing.”

“You could say that, but _there’s just a_ _ **small**_ _scene with that_ ,” Dee explained with his index and thumb tightly circled. “It’s a really, uh, _complex_ and layered, but beautiful production, with an… uh… equally complex character.”

“Oh, no, I get it. There’s a lot more to _me_ than my pole-dancing too,” Hare told him, nodding again, certain that Dee had already known that he pole-danced.

Except Dee hadn’t, and he was now grappling with the image in his head before he whipped his hands in front of him, as if that would clear it. “S-so what do you say? Can you help a tweedle out, here?”

“Oh, of course, I can!”

And so Hare disappeared into his house to find the requested items… even the fuzzy pink handcuffs. “And don’t worry: I’ve washed them,” he said with a wink that sent chills back and forth through Dee’s body. “Yup. All the props you’ll need. And by the way, good for you for _going there_ for the sake of the theatrical arts! You know, I go to the community playhouse all the time! I’ll have to keep a lookout for you! _Definitely_ wouldn’t want to miss it if you got the role! Uh, what’s the play called again?”

This ploy was sending Dee deeper and deeper down a hole of paranoia, horror, and second-guessing before he accepted the neatly folded booty shorts balancing a stack of shiny boxes and tools for unknown purposes. “Uh, it’s called, uh… The…”

Hare blinked with a blank grin across his face before Dee’s pause got a bit too long. “The…?” He helped him along.

“The… Courtship of the King.”

“ _Oooooo,_ ‘The _Courtship_ of the _King”_!!! I’ve _never_ heard of that before!” Hare said, and he seemed very excited about it.

“It’s, it’s sort of a prince and the pauper sort of tale. The King falls in love with… with a stripper.”

“Sounds more like Pretty Woman,” Hare thought to himself, before he realized with a tiny little wink: _“I guess that makes you Julia Roberts.”_

If any smile in Dee’s life had ever been the total opposite of how he was feeling inside, it was this one.


	6. Hatter Gives Hare the Gift of Self-Sacrifice

It was at six o’clock in the evening that Hatter was accepted through the towering double doors of the Duchess’s estate, and only a bit of trepidation and suspense before she emerged at the top of the staircase in a sheer night-robe, riddled with pompoms. They met each other in the glow of candlelight. In fact, there were so many candles, the smell of burning wax was making Hatter sneeze all the way up to her bedroom.

The Duchess cringed, as this was not sexy at all, in her opinion. Hatter took notice of it.

“I’m so sorry. Like, I am _so,_ so sorry!” He told her with his nose plugged and his eyes watery, though it was clear by that signature crinkle in her brow that all of the sorrys were also a boner-killer.

He set his bag down in the bathroom of the master suite as the door slammed behind him, then began to pull out the items he would need: the booty shorts, a plaid shirt and Doc Martins (which, as strange as this sounds, he already owned), some body oil, and a bottle of classic Coca Cola. Apparently, his role was to have been hard at work pitching haystacks or something before he wandered down some sort of _Phantom of the Opera_ lair for a refreshing beverage. Then he would find that the Duchess was there, and that he had been overcome by desires of the flesh. This was literally what she had called to have him write in the scroll of demands.

The thought that the Tweedles knew exactly that this was the warped reality in which they would be participating that night made the Hatter ten times as embarrassed as he tied up the Doc Martins. He also cringed to note that certain regions were already suffering from the tight squeeze of these shorts.

They were stretchy, he was told! He thought that they would be just like his superhero tights, but he was mistaken. So very much mistaken. At least he wouldn’t be wearing them for long.

“Hatterrrrr! Yoo-hoo?! What’s taking you so long in there?!”

“Uhhh, nothing, I’m just sprucing up!” He shouted over his shoulder, and then he proceeded to mess up all the shit on her counter so he sounded busy. “I’ll be right out!”

 _Damnit, Hare!_ He thought. _The things I’ll do for you even when you’re being an A+ bitch!”_

He steadied himself in front of the door and took deep breaths before he came out. This was either going to take hours, or two minutes.  
  


& & &  
  


Hare found that he was very bored that evening. He had had an early supper, and sat at the table rubbing his belly with a napkin tucked under his collar. The house was sparkling, but he didn’t really care. It was just “PMS cleaning”, as Hatter called it once… _whatever that meant!_

“Ohhh, I don’t even miss him!” He slapped his hands on the table and stood up, then shot his gaze at a framed picture of the monkey cups that was already on a shelf in the kitchen. “It’s my poor little Veronika that I can’t stop thinking about!”

And so, he decided to take an evening stroll while the sun was still out, hoping it would bring him enough peace to sleep that night. Yes, he was so very tortured, you see.

He was almost about to head to Hatter’s, and automatically veered to the left at a fork in the path, when he remembered he must be diligent in his anger. Surely, they were planning the banquet by now.

“Wwwwwhere do you think you’re goingggg…???” He heard, echoing from out of the ether. He just about ran into the Cheshire Cat while he was talking himself out of reconciling, and the sun was in his eyes.

“Oh, sorry! Didn’t see you there,” Hare replied. The Cat was too lazy to do anything but jiggle his eyebrows, as this was definitely the main thing anybody ever said to him. “Anyway, I’m just trying to relax and do something nice that doesn’t involve Hatter. I don’t know if you knew, but--”

“You’re fighting?”

Hare gasped. _“That’s_ _ **exactly**_ _what’s going on!”_

“Word… definitely… travels…!” The Cat told him.

“Oh does it? Good… I’m tired of telling people. It’s like, I don’t want drama in my life any more than anybody else…!” Hare proceeded to tell the Cat all about the woes he had to endure, being partnered with such a beautiful, bright-eyed numbskull. “Anyway. _He’s_ the one who’s really struggling right now. Say, wanna go get some _gelato~~~_?”

“Actually, I… really _can’t_ … You see, I… promised another furry friend of mine that I’d be _their_ therapist tonight.”

“Oh, oh I see, I totally get it. Sorry for not asking if you had the _mental_ , and _emotional_ , and _philosophical_ space for all this.”

“Don’t worry about it. Uhhh, really. Well, gotta go~~~~! RrrrrrRRRRrrrmeow.”

In no time, Hare was by himself, looking totally deflated. “Hmph. Cat seemed in a hurry. I hope his friend is okay.”

Next, it was Tweedle Dum who came speeding by, not really expecting to see Hare out and about by himself, and immediately conflicted about how he should react to the situation. In blind desperation for company, Hare had even snagged him by the sleeve. “Hey! Are you out for a walk too?!”

“Uh, sure am! Just keeping active while the sun’s up!”

“You seem so nervous. Aww, are you worried about whether Dee’s gonna get to be a stripper?!”

“What?! No! Why would Dee be a stripper?!”

“For the… play. _The Courtship of the King_? He told me about it earlier. _Oh, my gosh_. Did I just spoil his secret? HE PROBABLY WAS GONNA WAIT TO TELL YOU. Once he got it! Oh my GOSH, I’m such a blabber-mouth!” Dum had just been staring in terror at him the entire time. Hare finally realized he should let go of his arm. Being free of his iron grip seemed to jog Dum’s memory.

“You know…” Dum bobbed his head up and down in a needlessly exaggerated manner. “He was acting very mysterious today. That, uhhh, must be why! Oh, and, and, and, that’s why Hatter is gone too. He went with him. For moral… support.” This straightened Hare right up. In fact, he looked constipated all of a sudden.

“Did he? Well… how _kind_ of him. Although I don’t think morals are going to come in handy for this gig.” After giving it some more thought, he just swatted his hands and shrugged. “Well, he needed _something_ to do to get his mind off me, I guess.”

& & &  
  


Back at the Duchess’ estate, Hatter was ass up against a pole, half-heartedly twerking against it as he studied a crumpled piece of paper. He’d taken it from the breast pocket of his plaid shirt, which was artfully tied into a knot above his belly-button, and he thought he was being discreet. Though if nothing else gave it away, it was his grumbling.

“God-damnit, Hare! _I can barely read this…!_ ”

It was loud enough for the trombone player to hear, who was hired to accompany every sound Hatter made, so he gave it a long, runny tute, as if to sigh for him. This really was a disaster, and even he could see it, even as he tried to remain impartial.

The Duchess was splayed amongst a cluster of throw-pillows, meanwhile, and she was growing more and more agitated. “What are you doing?!” She wondered. Then, the flutist meant to accompany her made a forceful little flutter just out of frame.

“Uhhh, just a sec…!” Then he frowned really hard in concentration at the paper and did some kind of up and down grind with his ballsack against the metal, which was now quite tender beneath the air-tight embrace of the booty-shorts.

The Duchess braced herself as Hatter stood up and took a giant, swooping gymnast’s leap towards the pole, attempting to twirl around it. Instead, he just knocked his own knees together and landed on his tail-bone. The trombonist had started off sexy, to try to motivate poor Hatter, but he had no choice but to flare out the stately _brrrr_ ’s of his instrument into a startling, thunderous tremble, followed by an abrupt clap.

“OH, COME ON. I WASN’T _THAT_ BAD,” Hatter screeched at him.

“Hatter, _what_ kind of dancing is _this_ , and _what_ do you have there in your hand?!” The Duchess demanded to know. The off-screen flute sounded just as outraged.

Hatter sat there on his ass, pouting, before he swung his leg around and sat more comfortably next to the pole. He could only sigh. “Listen, your Grace, I really _don’t_ know how to do this, and I brought a list of notes that the Hare wrote, which _really_ _make it sound_ _**so much EASIER THAN IT REALLY IS!**_ We should’a had _him_ whore himself for this plant back.”

“ _Ohhh,_ put that away and find something else to do!”

He looked utterly at a loss for a moment, then got to his feet and started swaying, sashaying, and shimmying all around, in that way he did that made his legs look like they had no bones, and the rest of him look like he had no idea what attraction to a woman even was. (He looked really gay, is what I’m saying.)

“Stop that! You look terribly gay right now, and it’s making me ask myself if _I’m_ not a friend of Dorothy _myself_. My vagina is like the Sahara, here!” Hatter had completely stopped what he was doing and stood in front of the bed. There was a growing look of shame and disillusionment across his face as both the Duchess and the flutist yelled at him in synchrony. “Do you truly not know how to use _any of this?!_ ” And she swirled her hand in a circle in the general direction of his body.

“I… I don’t know what to say, I… I’ve never had such _disparaging_ feedback before,” Hatter answered her. The trombone, too, groveled. “I guess this means you want me to leave, doesn’t it? I did my best, right? And that’s all that matters?!”

“Not around here, it doesn’t! Ugh…”

Both were silent as the abundant candles that had so relentlessly been assaulting Hatter’s senses flickered around them. Now that all the action had stopped, Hatter tried to make a very productive snort and wiped his eyes.

“If I give you my shirtless cowboys calendar, could you at least get it up long enough for a shag? I _need_ it. Badly.”

“I mean, y-y-y- _maybe_ , if I feel a connection…” The Duchess wasn’t listening anymore as she rummaged through her bedside drawer. “Although I _do_ like women _too,_ y’know… _Just not you…_ ”

“Here, here,” she said as she flapped the calendar over her head. “Go and have a look, you sad, pitiful gay.” Hatter scrunched up his face before he went to grab it from her.  
  


& & &  
  


Dum’s lids were half closed as he dragged his tongue across the triple-fudge gelato that the Hare had bought for him. He didn’t know that it was the only reason he was there, partially listening to his passive-aggressive prattles.

“Y’know, we’re _all_ transitioning through phases of our lives, not just Rabbit. We are _alive_ ,” Hare pontificated from across the table at the gelato shop, shaking his hands in front of him, along with many other gestures that were supposed to correlate with what he was saying. Dum just nodded. “We live, we grow… All that’s alive must _grow,_ Dum! People, _plants,_ languages… I’ve been telling Hatter _forever_ that you can use ‘literally’ for emphasis. Which side of that debate are _you_ on?” He fixed his gaze on Dum for much longer than Dum was even aware he had been asked a question.

“Sorry, what?”

Fortunately for him, he dodged having to face Hare’s realization that this had been a one-sided conversation. Hare was staring at something behind him and getting back that constipated look. Dum looked over his shoulder.

It was Rabbit.

Rolling contentedly up to the counter to get himself and her Majesty a treat.

“What’s _he_ doing here?! And looking too well-rested to have been a good parent to our poor, precious Veronika!!!” Hare growled, almost loudly enough for Rabbit to hear as he was making his order.

“Wait a minute: I thought the plant was a boy! I mean, how could it _not_ be?!”

Hare tried to calm his unsteady breaths long enough to lower back to his seat from hovering stance and answer him. “Well,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about it, _a lot_ , and read some books about her kind, and all her behavior, at least what I’ve seen, was _extremely_ feminine.”

Dum was struggling to emote the right reaction as Rabbit discovered, in a casual glance, that his sort-of-friends were there. “ _Oh dear--_ hello,” he said to the ceiling, and then to them, respectively. “You’ve had a hankering for the same tasty, frozen delight, I see.” Very reluctantly, the Rabbit rolled closer to their table as he realized he was holding up the line. “Uhh, spending some quality time togetha~~?”

By complete chance, the two of them had their hands quite close to each other on the tabletop. Dum whipped his down to his lap, while the Hare, who was completely oblivious to it, rolled the explanation he had been given off his tongue:

“Oh, Dee’s at the community playhouse. Auditioning for a play!” He sighed. “Do you think we should have gone to support him too, and sat at least five seats away from Hatter? I’m feeling a little guilty.”

“Don’t. I’m sure he’s fine,” Dum said through his teeth. Rabbit’s brow had cocked quite high, but he had nothing to say.

“You’re probably right. And anyway, I supported him in my own way. _I_ was the one who gave him the great advice for the stripper’s pole.” Now Rabbit’s whole head had tilted. “ANYWAY, hello Rabbit, how are you~???” Rabbit could see in Dum’s eyes, brief as it was, that he was silently calling out for help, though there was obviously very little Rabbit could do. Hare wasn’t done yet: “How’s my sweet darling? Is she back to a healthy shade of chartreuse?” He turned to Dum to clarify: “Yesterday, she was a _liiiittle_ yellow. Might have had a funky bug.”

Rabbit was determined not to let anything harsh his mellow, so he pretended like Hare had said something much shorter and less annoying: “I’m doing quite fine, now, Mr. Hare. But remember, we had a deal: we don’t talk about the plahnt in person. You just harass me on the telephone at any possible hour...” He glanced to see if his order was ready yet, then forced a smile at the two and thwapped his fingers atop the vacant chair he had been resting his weight on. Dum was sure he had heard the tiny scream of rubber across linoleum, but unless Rabbit tipped over the chair, he wasn’t going to bring attention to himself.

“Right, right,” the Hare trailed.

Rabbit glanced back again to the counter, keeping his haste as subtle as possible, as Dum crunched on through his cone. It was all the sound the three of them made until a conspicuous buzzing issued from Rabbit’s vest pocket. _Had the Queen set the palace on fire?!_ With an accelerating heart rate, he checked the caller ID… then looked up, only to find Hare holding his blackberry up to his ear, with a face that said he thought he was being _very_ clever. Rabbit threw up his hands, speechless.

“Hey, you said any possible hour,” Hare reminded him.

“Y-you are not _seriouslehhh--_ ”

“Hold on, I’ve gotta leave a voicemail.”

The buzzing stopped, then Hare started jabbering into his speaker. Though his order was being called, repeatedly, Rabbit could not hear, as he had struck his fingers into his ears and went _la-la-LA-LA-LA_ as loudly as he could.


	7. Hatter is Not as Gifted as He Once Thought

“You have got to be kidding me!” Came a breathless wail from under the sheets. Hatter was still reeling from the unexpected climax he had just experienced, after mounting the Duchess for all of sixty seconds. The trombonist meanwhile, had spat a lot of air into his mouthhole during this time. The flutist hadn’t made any sound at all.

Then Hatter tipped over like a fallen statue and just laid there with his mouth open.

“I can’t believe this. _I can’t believe this!”_

“I’m sorry, your Grace! _Hhffff_ … you’re just so… so… wonderful? I couldn’t-- _hhgh,_ help myself--”

“That is the biggest load of _COCKSHIT_ I have ever heard, and I’ve heard _A LOT_ , Mr. Mad Hatter.”

“Okay, listen! It _really_ wasn’t you!” By now, the trombone and the flute were trying to play melodies with very different tones over each other.

“OH, _would you be_ _ **quiet**_ _over there?!_ ” Their onlookers bowed their heads as the room went quiet. “Of course it wasn’t me! Why would it be me?!” The Duchess ripped her sheets up to her chest and turned her back to him, so she could seethe to herself. “ _You’re_ the problem, here! And I thought you could last for hours!”

“Okay, I don’t know how you knew that,” Hatter began to answer, also clutching the sheets, “but I really don’t have a pattern, that I’m _ **aware**_! I’m kind of like a… slot machine. Sometimes, give me a good yank and I’m all 7’s. Other times, it’s a real doozy and you’ve wasted all your money,” he explained with a sigh…

“Get out.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Grab all of your glittery, girly lubricants, and _vamanos_ , you sad, pitiful gay!--”

“But I’m not--”

“OUT!”

Hatter decided that racing out of the Duchess’ estate really probably _was_ his best course of action, so he went hunting for all of the vein attempts at seduction he had brought in the “stripper sack”, as he had decided to call it.

“That was fast, sir,” the butler suddenly peeped from his side, from a place he hadn’t even seen him, as he was rushing down dim, candlelight halls to the giant double doors.

“Uhhh, yeah. Well, you know, I-I-I had the magic touch--uh, what can I say?” The Hatter rambled without stopping, quite determined.

“Will you be needing any--”

“I called a cab!” As Hatter yanked at the doors, he heard what sounded to him like the pounding of heavy rain behind them... and was dismayed to find that he was right. “Oh god, no!” The butler uncrossed his arms and took a hesitant step.

“But, sir, what about the--?” Hatter was not in a state to notice what the butler was going on about. All that he noticed was that a couple of umbrellas were poking out of an elaborately painted ceramic receptacle, just beside him.

His eyes darted between the umbrellas and the butler, _the umbrellas and the butler_ , _**the umbrellas and the butler!**_

Then he stole one.

“But, sir!”

Just before he whipped out of sight, he looked the butler in the eye from all the way across the hall and jutted his finger at him. “Y-you will receive this in the mail. I promise you: _I will send it back!_ ” 

& & &  
  


It was eight o’clock now, and the Tweedles sat peacefully at their modest kitchen table, sipping classic Coca Cola from the six pack they’d gotten at the wobuck store earlier that day.

“The only thing, _literally_ the only thing that got me off the hook was that Hare needed to go home and _wait_ for Rabbit to call him back!” Dum relayed to Dee, who had taken himself to the cinema this whole time and found the fact that his brother had been suffering while he laughed and stuffed down more popcorn to be just _hilarious_. His whole diet was probably popcorn by now, who knows. “And by the way,” Dum added, “I-I’d have to say I agree with using that word just for emphasis. It’s probably fine...right?”

“Actually, I’ve changed my mind,” Dee said.

“What?!”

“Well now that _you’re_ using it, it’s totally uncool now. There are lots of other words that emphasize _and_ make dictionary sense. Like… like ‘legitimately’, or, or ‘seriously’, or ‘absolutely’, ‘clearly’, or ‘unabashedly’.”

Dee was cool as a cucumber as he said it. Dum, on the other hand, was starting to look more like a red pepper. Or maybe a grumpy little eggplant. Then a surprisingly clever retort came to his mind.

“We’re ‘unabashedly right in front of you’. Would you have actually said that to the butler at the estate? What are you, Nigel Thornberry?” Dee was not ready for this raining of salt upon him at all. “Can I get you a little barbershop suit and monocle to go with that?”

“Oh, shut up, man.”

Dum just cackled.

“Well, you had it coming to you: we _all_ had to take one for the team,” Dee told him, with a very light-hearted and satisfied smile.

“I offered to spend the night with the Duchess! _And_ to get the booty-shorts!” Dum reminded him. “Both would have been better than to tag along with Hare while he’s going through post-partum depression. Or Hatter withdrawal.”

“Probably both. But sorry, I think having to spend the night with the Duchess is the worst.” Dum shrugged, and then they sipped at their Colas some more as the rain drizzled down the windows.

"So which junk, exactly, was Hatter talking about? The front...or the back?" Dum wondered.

"I… I don't know and I don't think we need to care,” Dee replied.

"Well I'm just saying: does Hatter think he has the biggest package around here? He had better be careful before he _knows_ for sure!" This was as good a time as any for Dee to rise up from his chair and ready himself for a nice long shower.

"Okay, I think he was talking about the back, Dum, _and dear God why are we talking about this…_ I don't want to think about Hatter noticing either of our… our--”

Suddenly, they heard the doorbell ring.

Dee’s eyes widened as he spied through the window a sketchy silhouette under an umbrella, standing at their porch.

When the door opened on Hatter, he fell to his knees on the doormat. “I COULD KISS THE GROUND, BUT I WON’T, _THAT WOULD BE GROSS_ … But I _will_ do this,” and he pressed his forehead down in supplication. Supplication that he may forget this entire night. Supplication that his dry-clean only suit wasn’t ruined. Supplication that Hare would finally be satisfied.

“Hatter, get up.”

They went to the couch and had Hatter sit down. They brought him some Cola but he was having none of it. _“Get that away from me_ ,” he muttered as it was briefly flashed before him. Dum got him water instead.

As he was chugging the whole thing, Dee gingerly sat to his side with only half of his ass on the cushion as he placed his hand on his shoulder. “Was it… was it not as bad as it sounded?”

Hatter was too embarrassed to tell the story, as most of it wasn’t a solid case about the Duchess’ horrible...ness. No, most of it was a solid case about his ineptitude in an area he was sure he was _at least_ sufficient. I mean, he didn’t have much by way of reviews, but Hare always made a ton of noise. The Tweedles were getting frustrated, as they could see that this thought process was going on in his mind, based on his expressions: indignant outrage, wistful shame, squinting off in space, then nodding to himself in mild relief. ...Yet they couldn’t know specifically what any of that was about!

“He’s still in a state of shock. Here, put his feet up,” Dee told his brother as he scurried out of the way. “Well you’ve at least got the plant, right? And that’s all that really matters.”

“Oh, yeah, Hatter being scarred for the rest of his life is no big deal,” Dum agreed as he heaved up Hatter’s feet by the ankles. Hatter had been going along with it, feeling quite comforted and tended to, before Dee asked the question. Then he froze with his feet slightly elevated, never to place them down on the cushion, his face turning a pale shade as if he’d seen a ghost. The ghost of his original task and reason for being there.

“Hatter…? You _brought back the plant_ , right?” Dum tried to clarify, also frozen.

“That’s… _that’s_ what the butler was trying to tell me! He didn’t want the _umbrella_ back!” He told them, as if _they_ were mistaken. Dee stooped down in front of him and tried to shake him out of a spiral of disassociation he was now falling through.

“Hatter? _Where_ is the plant?! It’s not still in the Duchess’ garden, is it?!”

“I-I… I… I...” Hatter stuttered. “S-she didn’t want the sparkles, and I kept falling off, and the cowboys, and the slot machines…”

Soon, he was hyperventilating. And Dee was so upset, he started to pace: in fact, he looked like he was going to strain his groin from yelling at him. “OHHH, brother, _what_ are we going to do?!”

Dum gave it some real consideration and started to feel better all of a sudden as he said: “well, we could just go back and get it tomorrow.”

“NONSENSE. Tomorrow will be too late!”

Dum just gave him a face, because he had _no idea_ what he was talking about. So he sat his brother down next to Hatter so they could both hyperventilate together. And he brought more water just in case.


	8. Dum is More Gifted Than Anyone Thought

There was not a stir in the Tweedle house until the morning. I mean, besides the occasional thrashing of Hatter and Dee in their sleep. Dee was having a fever dream about Hare finding out _The Courtship of the King_ wasn’t real. Based on Hatter’s murmuring, he got fat off cookies again, and Hare broke up with him over it.

Both seemed to wake with a serious jolt in their respective places: Dee in his bed, and Hatter on the pull-out sofa. Unlike their dreams, they were welcomed into the warm embrace of order and peace, with unusually pleasant sights and smells. Sunlight was filtering through the blinds. The rain had stopped. Somebody was _clearly_ making bacon.

 _Had Hatter helped himself to the kitchen?!_ Dee was sure that the only thing in that man’s cookbook was catastrophes!

He sprung out of bed and rushed to see. Instead, it was Tweedle Dum: sipping coffee with one hand, and tossing some flapjacks in a frying pan with the other. A lazy susan that neither of them ever used was out on the table, where bacon, sausages, and hash-browns sat atop, still fresh and steaming. There were clean glasses and napkins set out, even a basket of biscuits cradled in a cloth napkin like baby Jesus or something. Dum turned around and found that Dee was just staring at everything, trying to process that it wasn’t any sort of problem that he should fix.

“Hey! G’morning, Dee. How was your sleep?” He asked casually, like this was no big deal.

“It was awful. But this… looks… delicious? _Why_ are you cooking all this?”

Dum set down the frying pan and gave Dee a pat. “Sit down, have some! I figured we’ve all had a rough night and must have been extra hungry. Also, I’ve been up since three, and I realized coffee actually works?! And it tastes _fine_ once you dunk enough sugar into it!”

Dee had lowered into a seat and tentatively nibbled on a piece of bacon when suddenly Hatter swayed into the kitchen, trying to bat his ridiculous night-cap out of his face. “ _What_ is this sensational blend of enticing aromas????” He asked vaguely to both of them as he rubbed sleep out of his eyes.

“Breakfast, apparently,” Dee answered, while Dum just leaned into the counter exuding pride and satisfaction.

Hatter did not question it at all. He wanted a stack of flapjacks taller than his hat and made a huge sensation about the fact that the Tweedles just happened to have raspberry syrup. Dee was equally inclined to stuff his face: after all, all he’d been eating was popcorn, and that surely wasn’t helping him, _or_ his emotional regulation.

“ _Brother_ , you seem like you’ve got your head cleared,” Dum told him, still drinking copious amounts of coffee.

“It is. I don’t know _why_ I freaked out so bad last night. We’ll just send Hatter back today to pick up that dumb plant. Pass the salt and pepper, please?” Hatter looked up and blinked a few times, very intentionally, before he realized the salt and pepper were right in front of him and moved them across the table, with a smile.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Dee. The plant’s right out there in the living room," Hatter said. It was a mystery to him why Dee seemed more upset than relieved, but he kept on with his story while he mixed some ketchup into his scrambled eggs. “Yeah, it was right on the table by the sofa.”

After squinting incredulously at him for a moment, Dee flew into the living room with his eyes bugging, and he found the plant just as Hatter had indicated.

“What?! That’s impossible!”

“Uhhh, Dee, _nooo_ , it’s not? I was just there yesterday.” As Hatter appeared behind him, having taken a sausage to go, Dee shoved past him and drilled into Dum with his eyes alone.

Dum just laughed his ass off.

“Brother, sit back down before your tits get whiplash. _It was me!_ I brought it back,” he told them all _caszh* (*caszh being the short-form of casual, The More You Know~)_ , which only pulled the recipients of this statement into further confusion.

“ _How_ did you get the plant back?” Dee asked -- demanded, really, to know. Dum just shrugged.

"I just broke the fuck in and stole it."

Hatter’s lip quivered as his tired brain tried to compute why he felt so opposed to this. “How could you have stolen the plant… when I worked so hard for it?”

“Because you fucking forgot it, dude,” Dum told him. Fragments of his misadventure, and all the failures within, were filling the picture back in for Hatter as he grabbed himself a chair again and plopped himself squarely in it. He was definitely concerned that his tits were going to go flying. “Ahh, hold on, I left the waffle-press on,” Dum said as he swiveled around and yanked out the plug. “Yeah so anyway, I remembered there wasn’t a groundskeeper, so I climbed the fence, found a shovel inside a shed, found the monkey cups, and dug ‘em out.”

“NOOOO, you didn’t,” Dee corrected him.

“Yes, I did,” Dum corrected back. “Then I found a really springy tree and blasted out of there with the pot in my hand, like Tarzan.” His eyes were really wide as he explained. “Then I found myself beside the riverbank. It was like a dream: the sunrise across the water… There was a canoe tied to the dock so I hopped in and had a smoke. A real adrenaline rush! Then I told the plant ‘you’re welcome’, and paddled us downstream. Took me straight to Hatter's. ...Hatter, you really need to go home. Your table’s a smelly nightmare.”

After Dee had processed all of this, he turned to Hatter and shook him by the shoulder. “He got into Rip Roaring Rabble Tales,” he told him, as if this was comforting. “And I think that’s where this is all coming from. Not that this helps us understand it any better, but,” he chuckled, “so, _really,_ Dum.”

He looked up to Dum, who perked right up. “Hm?”

“How did you get it back?"

"I just told you."

"That was a lie, brother."

“Was not.”

“Was, _too_.”

“Was not.”

“You’re not capable of it. It’s a lie."

Dum turned to the fourth wall with a deadpan expression. "Okay, sure it was."

Dee continued to stoop beside Hatter and keep his fragile “tits” intact, as he groped for more realistic explanations. “Maybe the butler brought it by. He seemed like a decent guy. Dumb, but decent!” Hatter could get on board with this. Really, he had to get on board, of any floatable theory, or he’d drown in a sea of shame and disenchantment.

Whilst they patted and reassured one another, Dum just rolled his eyes and started collecting plates. He didn’t need no validation.  
  


& & &  
  


It was a suspiciously still day. Still, quiet, fresh, uninhabited… As if Wonderland, now dewy and sparkling, had been washed anew by the rain. They felt smiled upon by the powers that be. It was Hatter’s job to keep the plant warm, and the Tweedles’ to make sure nothing and no one got in the way of them delivering it.

“Uh, guys, Hare’s house is this way,” Hatter reminded them at the first intersection of paths.

“We’re not going to Hare’s. This plant is for Rabbit,” Dee explained as he tugged him back on track. Hatter just frowned.

“Why would he need two of them?”

“UGH, do you not remember the plan at all?!” Dee exploded on him, before he remembered he must be careful about that groin thing… Then he tried to be a little bit more gentle, if for no one else his own sake: “We _have_ to swap this one for Rabbit’s so we can give the _other_ one to Hare. I mean obviously they both seem identical to _us_ , but--”

“Hare will _notice_ it’s not Veronika,” Dum finished for him. Both of his company gave him a weird look.

“He named it Veronika,” Dee clarified, deadpan. “I thought it was a boy?”

Dum thought for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “No… I think _this_ one’s a boy.”

“How can you tell?” Hatter wondered.

He shrugged: “Well, we spent enough time together, and I’ve been thinking about it, _a lot_ …”

“Okay okay, _right_ ,” Dee talked over him, completely done with this. “We _do_ need back Veronika _\-- ugh did I just really?_ \-- but Rabbit still hasn’t called us back. We told him we were coming, over an hour ago!”

“Well he’s a _busy bunny_ ,” Hatter sort of mused, with a sound of agreement from Dum. The both of them were grinding on him more than they usually did, probably because he had been living with them. And it was so tiring being the voice of reason.

“Let’s just hurry up,” he told them. “If I never see one of these again, it’ll be too soon.”


	9. One Man's Gift is Another Man's Nightmare

There was nobody out on the courtyard, or even in the throne room, when they arrived. Call as they may, the palace’s inhabitants never turned a corner and answered, and no proof that they had been out and about was apparent at all. Hatter and the Tweedles could sense that something was wrong without being able to put their fingers on it, and though they might not usually wander where they weren’t invited, it seemed warranted this time, so down the hall they went…

As they tip-toed past closed doors, they began to hear fragmented shrieks that were clearly the Queen’s, coming from beyond a wall to their right. The stained glass windows overlooking the garden were just ahead, so they figured she must have been out there. Very quietly, the three crowded into a window: Dum at the bottom, Dee crouching above his head, and Hatter standing tall above him.

All they saw was Rabbit clunking by in a frenzy, with two empty pots, before the door to the garden cracked open and the Queen bustled through. She looked determined to find something, before she realized there were three trespassers with another of those cursed plants, staring at her.

“WHAT are you doing with that?!” She screamed. “... _AND ALSO_ why are you here?!” She remembered to also scream. Hatter only got as far as opening his mouth. “RABBIT HAS SPRUNG PLANT PENISES ALL OVER THE GARDEN, AND THAT IS THE _LAST_ THING WE NEED RIGHT NOW! _WHAT_ IF IT’S _AIRBORNE?!_ ”

Everybody’s instinct was to look out the window again, before the Queen forbade it. “Don’t take a step closer! I need to make a phone call! Oh, WHY are there always photographers coming when something goes terribly wrong around here?!” By now, she was just raving to herself on the way to her old-time horn decorated with rhinestones.

“Hatter, stay here. We’ll go out and see what the damage is!” Dum said, pulling a surprisingly reluctant Tweedle Dee with him.

When they came outside, it really was the most obscene of infestations. As far as the eye could see, there were plant dongs. Dee looked like he might need to be hospitalized. “I said ‘if I ever saw one again’!” He wept, just as he collapsed like a Victorian damsel into Dum’s arms. They went down to the floor and Dum didn’t know what to do besides take off his own hat and fan him with it.

Luckily, a more qualified person came bursting through the door behind them. “I got here as _fast_ as I could!” Hare let out in a blood-curdling cry. “The Queen said there was an emergency with our little Veronika---? OH MY _GOD_.”

Hare’s mouth fell as he took in one long panoramic view of the situation. “O-o-oh! This is…!”

“--The funniest thing I’ve ever seen!!!” He heard behind him. He turned slowly around to Dum and found that he was weeping so hard in amusement he had dropped Dee’s head to the ground. The Hare had only a look in his eye that suggested what a pitiful simpleton Dum must have been, not to see, not to know, what was all too clear to him. He turned back to the garden.

“No, it’s… _the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen!_ ” As though he were a child, sent free to wander Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory for the first time, he wafted into the garden with both awe and trepidation.

Then he found Rabbit, doubling down on a shovel, muttering to himself how he must persist! “Rabbit! Stop!” Hare called to him, before he pushed him out of the way and snatched away the shovel.

“Give that back to me! I’ve _got_ to do this, or the Queen will have my head! And that’s no sort of nod to _**any**_ _thing_ , she won’t actually do it, but I’m speaking hyperbolically, so that you’ll know how dire it is that you let go of-- _I say, LET GO of that shovel, Mr. Hare!_ ”

“No!”

The both of them were locked in a struggle for it, now.

“Why didn’t you tell me if I planted it, it would reproduce?!”

“I did!”

“Well! Well I suppose I…! I suppose I forgot! You told me far too many things when I was sleep-deprived! The Queen’s having a spread done in Kings and Queens magazine about her garden and was complaining about the frogs! I thought the plant might take care of them for us, so I planted it out here~ and… _oh dear…_ ” He couldn’t keep trying to snatch this shovel away from a bunny half his age, and suddenly realized how tired he was, so he collapsed, right there at Hare’s feet. “Oh, I don’t know what to do now…!”

Hare was flabbergasted to hear that he was weeping. And not the way Dum was weeping: the other kind of weeping.

The Queen had re-emerged and stomped out to them with her head held high, trying to project as much dignity as was possible whilst she was surrounded by botanical pornography. “Hare,” she looked him in the eye, “you will take all of these you-know-whats back with you. We don’t want them anymore! And Rabbit: STOP YOUR SOBBING. This is an _**obsession**_!”

Immediately, Rabbit’s tear-stained face popped up, as this sure as fuck was no fascination of his, but he had no chance to set the record straight.  
  


& & &  
  


Hatter had been waiting in the hallway, occupying himself in a very special way. “You know, we’re all going through different phases in our lives. Rabbit’s not the only one!” He told the plant, which was now sitting on the Queen’s davenport in the throne room as he paced. “We live, we grow… often times at different rates! We can’t be rushed! Not off our parents’ couch, not into parenthood… And certainly not into accepting dumb grammatical memes. Sure shouldn’t have to be forced into using ‘literally’, at least not on _purpose_ , if I don’t want...”

He turned on his heel and stared at his exiled companion, really boring into it for some sign that it had been listening. Hatter squinted, the camera zoomed in…

“Well thanks, I’m glad you agree.”

“Hatter!”

He jumped.

“Wah-WAHH-WAHHH???!”

Then he found Dum standing innocently at the doors to the hall, beckoning him. “Come on! We need everybody out there to grab a shovel and help get these plants loaded up!”  
  


& & &  
  


It wasn’t until the sun was setting on Wonderland that every batch of monkey cups had been potted and loaded into the Walrus’ pickup truck. They were rather surprised that he had shown up so short-notice, from who knows where. “Well, when the Queen calls… how can I not answer?!” He declared in a jolly, sing-song voice.

“He digs her,” Dum whispered to Rabbit.

Rabbit didn’t want to talk about what he knew, so he pretended to be too distracted by the pressing question he had on his mind. “Uhh, surely the photographer’s not still on his way…? ‘Twould be a terrible time to try capturing the Queen’s garden now.”

“Oh, he already came,” the Queen suddenly appeared to answer him. The Tweedles, Hatter, Hare, and Rabbit all looked at her as they flopped breathlessly over her stone benches, their clothes and faces all soiled like little chimney sweep boys.

“Wahhhhhh?” Hare sort of drawled with a questioning inflection.

“I told him it was a disaster, and that all of you were out trying to fix it for me, and he said it would make me look good. It would show everybody how dedicated my subjects are to making me happy. Nobody even noticed, they were all working so hard.” It was Dee whose face turned the reddest when he heard this:

“...Are we going to be able to _see_ these photos before they’re in the spread?” The Queen caught the tone in which he asked, and felt she should remind everyone that she had had her patience significantly dwindled today too:

“Well, do you think you’ll be in the editing room for that?” She blinked at him with her arms crossed, but he very smartly chose silence. All the answers he had in mind would only come back to hurt him.

Hatter was next to say something that grinded the Queen’s nerves: “I guess I won’t even ask if we’re going to be compensated for this…”

“Great idea, Hatter,” she told them. Then she flapped her wrists and glared at Rabbit long enough for him to realize that he had better follow her, probably to brew her tea and draw her a hot bubble bath. So much work she had to do today, bossing everyone around. She was all the way to the door when the Walrus finally piped up.

“Uhhhhh, I’ll just call you? Later tonight? Tomorrow? Whenever?” Although she turned around and had at least acknowledged him, the Queen’s way of seeming receptive to those plans was easy for Hare to interpret:

“Ohhhh, she doesn’t dig him back...”

Everybody filed out of the garden, in more or less a hurry to return to normalcy. Hare ran off to hitch a ride with the Walrus to his house, where his new plant children (adult children?) would be fostered. The only thing that Tweedle Dee wanted to see were his shower walls, so off he went, having no care in the world whether Dum followed.

Indeed, Dum was the only one left at the palace to witness Rabbit and Hatter at the end of the hall, arguing about the only batch of monkey cups that hadn’t wreaked havoc. Evidently, Hatter had caught Rabbit on his way back to the Queen with towels and bath salts and tried giving it to him.

“No, please, I insist,” Hatter told him. With his only free hand, Rabbit shoved it back.

“I said no! I’ll have nothing to do with it!”

“But you _have_ to take it. After _what I went through_ to get it for you!” Rabbit tilted his head.

“What did you do?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

Rabbit tipped back from how much he had to roll his eyes at this statement, then they continued to bat it back and forth. Dum knew that he had to intervene, so he reeled Rabbit in with his arm around his neck and whispered towards his fuzzy bunny ears: “Just say you’ll take it, and we’ll come pick it up later. A’ight? Promise.”

The Rabbit sighed. For a second he glimpsed the crisis behind Hatter’s glossy blue eyes, as he was handed the plant.

“T-thank you, Hatter, for all your troubles~~... You are a truly kind and selfless friend… Yes…”

“I agree, I’ve _really_ lost myself this week, and who knows if I’ll ever be recovered,” Hatter answered. Rabbit didn’t know how, and didn’t want, to carry on this conversation anymore, so he just pretended Hatter had said something less strange and provocative.

“You have a good night, too, now. Take… care,” he said.


	10. Epilogue

_One week later..._

A statement has been collected from each of the Wonderlandians about their individual experiences following this misadventure. No promise can be made that a collective reality has been established amongst them about what exactly transpired.

_Tweedle Dum_

“Don’t tell anyone, but I kept the plant. Named him Urkel.” He laughs hysterically about this, then sighs. The camera is really having a struggle, keeping up with him. “Let me tell you, it’s been a _whirlwind_. Praise the lord I have coffee, or I wouldn’t be able to keep up.” He takes a swig from his thermos. “There’s a lot of stuff I’ve got to buy, today, is why I’m hurrying. What? Oh, we don’t need to talk about it. Anyway, I put Urkel in a secret spot that only I can visit -- oh, and Alice knows about it too. She’s warming up to him. We don’t tell Dee.”

_Rabbit_

“Supposedly, the plants are all living at the He’a~s… not that I’ve gone and seen for myself.” He rolls his eyes and keeps dabbing his feather duster across various decorations on the Queen’s mantel. “Heavens, _please_. _Why_ would I go and do a thing like that..? My birthday’s come and gone: time to move past it all.”

_Hare_

“What can I say?” The Hare proudly gestures to the abundance of monkey cups scattered throughout the bushes in the east side of his garden, where the sunlight especially showcases them. “I’ve entered a new stage of my life.” He starts to choke up. “Grandma-hood.” He dabs his eyes with a fresh yellow handkerchief from his coat pocket. “I’ve always wanted to be a grandma. I didn’t think it was going to happen so soon, or maybe at all, but here we are. Yep yep yep… Hatter thought I could make a _pretty button_ off of these if I sold them back to the nursery -- since they’re in such _high demand_ apparently -- but I could never.”

He looks over his shoulder as Alice and Dum come frolicking to visit them, peering into their highly matured shoots to see if they have caught any creatures. Hare just smiles, then sighs. “Oh, why isn’t Hatter here?” His shrugging is emphatic. “We’re fighting. Says I’m being insensitive. Can’t imagine what _that’s_ about,” he explains with his eyes bugging.

“Well anyway… there was time to fret about that when the nest was empty, but _look at it!_ So many mouths to feed. Though I’m having a terrible time telling which one is Veronika… Oh well!”

_Tweedle Dee_

“No, I have not visited the Hare’s dick garden. I can’t even believe he lets Alice over here! The only good thing about it is he forgot about that silly play I made up. I was about to tell him a _whooole_ story,” he claims, flapping his wrist, “that I flubbed the audition so bad, everybody quit... but as soon as I mentioned it? He blew me off.” Dee looks to the sky and shakes his head.

“As for my brother, I don’t know _where_ to start with him… Bitch is brewing up all my grounds, started all this Martha Stewart shit. He never used to do anything around here, and now we have towels…” He looks deeply into the camera. “Embroidered… towels. With the same _exact_ monograms? _Which_ one am I supposed to use?” His voice cracks into a very high question. “A potpourri arrangement in every room. He crocheted a bunch of coasters.” Dee crosses his arms and purses his lips. “Yeah, maybe it sounds good to _you_ , but I’m worried about him.”

_Hatter_

“All my tea parties are awkward now. And I’m really upset about it! Nobody finishes the crumpets. I’ve had to eat _a lot_ of leftover food, and it’s growing me an extra coin purse. No, don’t even look.” The Hatter tucks the sides of his tail-coat around his mid-section with a growing flush in his cheeks. “You know, next year? Alice can pick the present, and we’ll just put our names on it. Whatever happens, it can be _her_ problem.”  
  


_Alice_

Alice just turns up her palms. “I’ve been at school. Me and Jennifer started a project about estuaries. I’m used to there always being a problem around here,” she says of Wonderland, legitimately just a few chairs down at the tea table from the Mad Hatter, who’s deep in thought and not even aware she’s being interviewed. “Yeah, when I came back and asked about Mr. Rabbit and Mr. Hare, everybody just cryptically told me that they’d ‘taken care of it’, but… I think we’re going to have to throw a banquet for these two.” She jerks her cheek in Hatter’s direction, then takes a sip of her tea. Has a crunch of her cookie, too.

_The Walrus_

I have nothing to say because I don’t know what happened… but I hope everyone’s alright, and _I_ find these monkey cups to be _exquisite!_ They don’t look at _all_ like _you-know-what’s_ to me!” He clears his throat and averts his eyes from the camera for a moment, then leans forward in desperation. “ _Did her Majesty say anything about me?_ ”

_The Queen_

Declined to comment.

_The Duchess_

Declined to comment.

_The Duchess’s Butler_

“We know what they did. Honestly, I’m surprised something of the sort didn’t happen sooner. We’ve not had a groundskeeper for… well, just as long as this new decree. What with all the musicians she’s hired, we couldn’t afford it anymore. She’s been made aware that if she just relieved the poor bassoonist out in the courtyard, who often waits for hours, she could hire the groundskeeper back. It’d be a much wiser investment, I told her... but she won’t listen to me.”

~ Fin ~


End file.
